East Elmhurst and the Lent-Riker-Smith House

December 19, 2014, 8:00 am

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There’s a little parcel of a neighborhood east of Astoria and north of Jackson Heights, east of the bail bonds offices of Hazen Street, north of the whizzing Grand Central Parkway and west of LaGuardia Airport’s expanse, containing a couple of surprising artifacts. Stop for lunch at the chrome-plated Airline Diner, built in 1952, at Astoria Boulevard and 70th Street where a scene from Goodfellas was filmed, make your way up Hazen, where buses enroute to Rikers Island roll past, detour a little down 77th Street; east on 19th Road brings you to one of Queens’ oldest homes. It’s a colonial farmhouse that was by most accounts built by Abraham Rycken Van Lent in 1729, though some historians date the oldest part of the house to be even older…perhaps 1656, according to an American Historic Buildings Survey. Rycken, whose family later changed its name to Riker, is remembered by most New… Read More

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Christmas on Broadway

December 23, 2014, 8:00 am

≫ Next: A Trip Down Newtown Road, Astoria

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One recent Christmas season, I hiked Queens’ very own Broadway. The route begins in Ravenswood at the East River edge, and plunges southeast into the heart of Elmhurst, indeed the center of the original town of Newtown (Middleburgh) first settled by Dutch colonials in 1652 — after an original settlement 10 years earlier in Maspeth had foundered after Indian attacks. Queens’ Broadway, which attained its present length only in the early 20th century, is an amalgam of a number of roads: Broadway in Ravenswood ran southeast to the now-demapped Ridge Road near Newtown Road; and the southern part between Woodside Avenue and Queens Boulevard is the eastern section of the colonial-era Hellgate Ferry Road, which connected Elmhurst and the East River; twisting Woodside Avenue follows most of its route today. I must admit that I’m unsure when these two roads were joined to create the present-day Queens Broadway. Maps from the… Read More

A Trip Down Newtown Road, Astoria

January 2, 2015, 7:30 am

≫ Next: A Walk in Far Rockaway

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Like a number of streets and roads in NYC, Newtown Road isn’t named for the neighborhood where it is, but for the neighborhood it runs to. And, like a number of NYC streets that run aslant the overall grid, it’s one of the older roads in the area. It is an Indian trail that became the main road to early Astoria settler William Hallett’s farm in the mid-17th century, and to the treacherous Hell Gate, the East River crossing to Manhattan. Its eastern stretch that ended in the heart of Newtown, now Elmhurst, was called Hurlgate, or Hellgate, Ferry Road; later named for the town through which it passed, becoming Woodside Avenue. At Newtown Road and 46th Street we find some older buildings that have odd angles. This is the last remnant of an old village called Middletown (likely called because it lay between old Astoria and Newtown) instituted in the 17th century. In… Read More

A Walk in Far Rockaway

January 6, 2015, 8:00 am

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Far Rockaway seems to be Miss Havisham-esque doyenne whose beauty has long-since faded. No border between New York City and any surrounding community could be more stark: this is where the suburban ritziness of Nassau County’s Five Towns (Inwood, Hewlett, Lawrence, Woodmere and Cedarhurst) meets the inner-city grittiness of New York City. Tiffany-windowed churches stand near inner-city projects. Far Rock is a thriving neighborhood and there are surprising elements to it that make it ripe for urban exploration. Take the A train. Like a trident, the A train has a 3-pronged terminus in Queens: Far Rockaway (above), as well as Rockaway Park on the western side of the Rockaway peninsula at Beach 116th Street, as well as Lefferts Boulevard in Ozone Park. Far Rockaway can also be reached via the Long Island Rail Road. In Far Rockaway you will find a rare New York City example of railroad rehabilitation. As late as 1953 the… Read More

How Long Is Northern Boulevard?

January 9, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: A Walk Up Union Street

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A road runs from the East River to the tip of the North Fork of Long Island, running through Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Flushing, Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Great Neck, Munsey Park, Port Washington, Muttontown, East Norwich, Oyster Bay Cove, Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Northport, Smithtown, Stony Brook, St. James, Port Jefferson, Rocky Point, East Shoreham, Wading River, Calverton, Riverhead, Aquebogue, Jamesport, Mattituck, Cutchogue, Southold, Greenport, Orient and Orient Point, and would go further were an ocean not in the way. It is a precolonial trace used by Native Americans before Verrazano and the Dutchmen who followed him caught sight of the lengthy island along whose north shore it limns. It’s Jackson Avenue, North Hempstead Turnpike, Lawrence Hill Road, Fort Salonga Road, North Country Road, Main Road, Route 25A, Route 25, and in NYC and Nassau County, it’s Northern Boulevard. In Queens, Northern Boulevard has been called Jackson Avenue (the… Read More

A Walk Up Union Street

January 13, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: A Statue Perseveres in Kew Gardens

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I have always been fascinated by streets that dramatically change character from one end to the other, as well as change their level of traffic. There are a number of streets in NYC that start with just a trickle of traffic and build and build to a heavy volume, such as Staten Island’s Hylan Boulevard, which begins quietly at the Alice Austen House (which belonged to the famed late 19th-early 20th century photographer) on the Narrows, becomes a screaming, honking mess as it roars down the island’s east shore, and ends quietly again at the historic Billopp Conference House, where Ben Franklin unsuccessfully tried to stave off the Revolutionary War. Each borough except Manhattan has a street, or streets, named Union, and Manhattan has the bustling Union Square, named for the confluence of Broadway (earlier Bloomingdale Road) and the Bowery. Brooklyn’s Union Street is named for the Union Stores, an 1800s East River dockside repository for sugar,… Read More

A Statue Perseveres in Kew Gardens

January 16, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Queens Victorian: Richmond Hill in Brief

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On Park Lane, at the east end of the vast Forest Park, which includes the neighborhoods of Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Richmond Hill and Glendale, a lone lamenting figure stands on a rise between the basketball courts and the tony homes spread out before it. His garments are ripped and his eyes look heavenward in a  supplicating manner. Passersby would be puzzled about what this figure symbolizes, were there not a NYC Parks sign positioned perhaps a bit too close to it. The Book of Job in the Old Testament concerns a God-fearing individual who is living a happy and satisfied existence. Satan wishes to test the depth of his love of God and gambles with the Creator that Job will renounce Him if all his earthly possessions are removed and he is plunged into poverty. Thus, the Sabeans and Chaldeans came and made off with his oxen and farm implements… Read More

Queens Victorian: Richmond Hill in Brief

January 20, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Blackwell Mansion Door, on Display at the Greater Astoria Historical Society

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Back in the infancy of Forgotten NY, April of 2000 to be exact, I was working at one of those jobs that only required me to be present 3 or 4 times a week (which is great for gathering Forgotten material but not so good when trying to pay bills) and, after a few weeks poking around abandoned hospitals and boatyards in Staten Island, I thought it would be nice to take a walk in a nicer part of town…a place that had, I knew, the most beautiful architecture ever conceived. Where might that be? Enter Richmond Hill, Queens. The Victorian era, roughly 1865-1900, was a period characterized by a booming economy in many of its years, and architecture responded with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink attitude. No color or design was written off, and no expense was spared in construction. Yet, nothing was tacky or tasteless and despite every house on the block being completely… Read More

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Blackwell Mansion Door, on Display at the Greater Astoria Historical Society

January 23, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Roger, Ahles: Two Bayside Beauties

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In 2007, the Brooklyn Museum donated a colonial relic to the Greater Astoria Historical Society — a door that was part of the historic Blackwell Mansion in Ravenswood, Queens, likely built in 1730 by patriarch Jacob Blackwell (1692-1744). After the Battle of Brooklyn (aka the battle of Long Island) in August 1776, the British and Hessians swept into Queens from the south and east. Upon their arrival in Astoria (not yet named as such), in September 1776, Colonel Jacob Blackwell had to flee. The British hacked the “Arrow of Confiscation” (seen clearly on the left in the above photo) into his front door, making it the property of the crown. This arrow marking still exists in the door’s exterior. Jacob Blackwell returned to the house and lived there through the worst of the British occupation, and died there in October 1780, still a British subject in a land not yet the independent United States. In… Read More

Roger, Ahles: Two Bayside Beauties

January 27, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Arctic Neck: Little Neck in Winter

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On the west side just south of 39th Avenue, we find the venerable fish-scale mansard roofed John William Ahles House (built in 1873). According to longtime Bayside historian Joan Brown Wettingfeld, in 1873, Robert Bell, nephew of Abraham Bell, a local landowner for whom Bell Boulevard is named, built this house for his daughter, Lillie and her husband, John Ahles as a wedding gift on “Ahles Road” (now known as 41st Avenue). This road ran then from 208th Street to present day Bell Boulevard. Old maps show a portion of 41st Avenue as Ahles Road as late as 1941. The naming of Ahles Road was no accident, for the road supervisor at the time was Abraham Bell II, and John William Ahles married Robert Bell’s daughter, Lillie, in June of 1873. Known for his integrity and business acumen, John William Ahles died in 1915 after amassing a large fortune. The old Bayside Theatre on the… Read More

Arctic Neck: Little Neck in Winter

January 30, 2015, 8:00 am

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I may not have expressly stated it previously, but even though I am able to function in summer, the heat and humidity wears me down to a nub by Labor Day every year; and I don’t feel fully dressed unless I can wear a jacket. Psychoanalyze that any way you wish, but I have always felt more contented and grounded in cool and cold weather. I would be completely ineffectual if forced to reside in equatorial regions or the Pacific. My neighborhood, Little Neck, in winter can occasionally be as picturesque as any town in the Poconos or the Catskills, though all it lacks is a mountain for actual skiing. Though I don’t mind, because they still talk about that ski trip I took to Hunter, let’s say a few years ago. (I had trouble with the tow line, to give you some idea.) Originally a Methodist church built in 1867 on… Read More

Hidden Astoria

February 3, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Ferry Days on the East River

≪ Previous: Arctic Neck: Little Neck in Winter

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In this ridiculously icy and slushy week let’s return to thoughts of the summertime, when there is no better time to wander the streets of Astoria and ponder the remnants of an earlier Astoria, when the streets carried names instead of numbers… and encounter other relics dredged up from the depths of western Queens history and hidden in plain sight for necromancers such as myself to notice them… This massive Tudor-ish pile — a magnificent building — stands at 30th Drive and 28th Street, and no doubt 99-100% of the tenants have no idea why the place is called Elm Towers. But I know. Years ago I paid a visit (one of many, actually) to the Map Room at the New York Public Library at 5th and 42nd. It’s the only place I know about that carries Hagstrom Maps editions going back almost the the original 1916 version. I asked for copies… Read More

Ferry Days on the East River

February 6, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Lord of the Alley

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In his recent State of the City address, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a citywide ferry service that would cost the same as a bus or train ride, including several new routes that would hopscotch along both sides of the East River and would reach as far as the Rockaways in Queens, Soundview in the Bronx, Coney Island in Brooklyn, and Stapleton in Staten Island, where new housing developments are currently under construction.   Ferry service in New York City, aside from the Staten Island Ferry which is subsidized so that there is currently no fare, have proven difficult to sustain. The Rockaway link was recently shut down for lack of ridership and high cost (as much as $30 per passenger to run, with a lesser fare per person). I like the idea of a beefed-up ferry service, and I have occasionally used the current service run by NY Waterway’s East River Ferry,… Read More

Lord of the Alley

February 10, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: “Maspeth Is America”

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I had gone past Claremont Terrace thousands of times — literally – without giving it a second thought about what it was. It’s an alley that is hidden along another dead end in the heart of Elmhurst, one of Queens’ busiest, most populated and diverse neighborhoods — it’s buzzing with energy day and evening. I would pass it, though, on the Long Island Rail Road on my way from Flushing to Penn Station, since its last remaining mansion, in a decayed, ravaged condition, was visible along the tracks. Claremont Terrace’s origins lie in American immigration, and a young businessman who made his name in the United States in the pre-Civil War era, beginning an enterprise that exists and flourishes today. Samuel Lord (1803-1889) was a British foundry worker from Yorkshire who came to the USA with dreams of entrepreneurship, opening a drapery-dry goods shop on Catherine Street in what is now the Lower… Read More

“Maspeth Is America”

February 13, 2015, 8:00 am

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≪ Previous: Lord of the Alley

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Maspeth, in a western corner of Queens, seems stuck between the grit of Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the west and the airy, almost suburban feel of its eastern and southern neighbors, Middle Village and Glendale. Maspeth was first settled by Native Americans and, after the middle 1600s, by the Dutch and English. It was absorbed by a newer settlement to the east (named, appropriately, Newtown–the present-day Elmhurst), became a part of the borough of Queens, and then became a part of New York City in 1898. “Maspeth” is derived from Delaware Indian terms that have, by different accounts, meant “great brook” or “bad water place”; the latter seems rather appropriate, since Newtown Creek, noxious and noisome through most of its latter-day history, is nearby. The name dates back to Dutch records in the 1630s. Beginning in the 1790s DeWitt Clinton, mayor of New York City from 1803 to 1815 and New York… Read More

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Elmhurst (Tanks) Park

February 17, 2015, 8:00 am

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Photo via NYC Parks The site of Elmhurst Park at Grand Avenue and 79th Street was once the location of two KeySpan Newtown gas holders, a highway landmark popularly known as the “Elmhurst gas tanks.” With the support of the community, the site was sold by KeySpan (which is now Brooklyn Grid) to the City of New York for $1 and was cleaned up and returned to the public as open space. The tanks were built by KeySpan’s predecessor, Brooklyn Union Gas, in 1910 and 1920 to store natural gas used for heating, cooling and manufacturing, and were engineered to expand and contract based on the volume of gas contained within, using a system of telescoping cylinders set in a steel truss frame. The tanks sat on a 17-million gallon underground basin of water that acted as a sealant: until the 1960s, inspections were carried out by a worker who crawled through… Read More

Shaw’s Hotel, Woodside

February 20, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: A Historic Pair in Flushing and East Elmhurst

≪ Previous: Elmhurst (Tanks) Park

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Time hasn’t been kind to the tiny building once known as Shaw’s Hotel on 64th Street north of Woodside Avenue, hard by the Long Island Rail Road main branch. A couple of years ago, a huge condominium was constructed just inches away from it on the corner of the two cross streets. In recent months, though, the owner has made several upgrades, the most notable being a large picture window on the 3rd floor that looks out onto the LIRR/Roosevelt Avenue El transit complex. The building has seen much, including a Forgotten New York tour in Woodside in June of 2010. It originally was owned and operated by Woodside innkeeper Benjamin Shaw at what was then the confluence of Woodside Avenue, an old road going back to the colonial era and before, and the vanished Trains Meadow Road, once the only diagonal road through what is now Jackson Heights. In 1842, Shaw… Read More

A Historic Pair in Flushing and East Elmhurst

February 24, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Neir’s of Woodhaven, NYC’s Oldest Bar

≪ Previous: Shaw’s Hotel, Woodside

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The Prince family opened the first commercial plant nursery in the USA in 1735, specializing in fruit trees. Patriarch Robert Prince learned horticulture from the remaining Huguenots (French Protestants) in the Flushing area, and the business flourished during and after the Revolutionary period. In the early 1800s, Robert’s son William opened the first bridge over the Flushing River that allowed wagon and cart traffic to enter from western Queens. Competing plant nurseries of the Bloodgood and Parsons families also opened, and in the 1800s, Flushing was known around the Northeast for horticulture. Eventually, though, as Flushing gradually became more urban, the nurseries moved out or failed. Today, the only reminder of the plant shops is Flushing’ street plan, which bears plant names from A (Ash) to R (Rose), and Prince Street. The Prince family home was constructed at Broadway and Lawrence Street (today Northern and College Point Boulevards) by the Embree… Read More

Neir’s of Woodhaven, NYC’s Oldest Bar

February 27, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Exploring the Kissena Corridor in Flushing

≪ Previous: A Historic Pair in Flushing and East Elmhurst

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This week, Neir’s, the venerable tavern in Woodhaven, threw down the gauntlet as the Queens Historical Society anointed it NYC’s oldest continuously operated drinking establishment, challenging the self-proclaimed champion, McSorley’s on East 7th Street in the East Village, which claims 1854 as its opening year. NYC historian Richard McDermott claimed differently in the mid-1990s; according to his research employing old insurance maps, census data and tax-assessment records, indicators pointed to an 1862 opening. McSorley’s certainly gained cachet over the years from Joseph Mitchell’s stories in the New Yorker, collected in his book Up In the Old Hotel. Infamously, McSorley’s stubbornly insisted on settling for half its potential profits by only admitting male customers until a court challenge in 1970. Both McSorley’s and Neir’s, if nature had not intervened, would  lose out to the South Street Seaport’s Bridge Cafe, which under various ownership has been operated as a distillery, grocery and bar since… Read More

Exploring the Kissena Corridor in Flushing

March 3, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: The Rubber Men of College Point

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A lengthy gash of green known as the Kissena Corridor can be seen on Queens maps, running from Flushing Meadows-Corona Park at its western end all the way east to Cunningham Park at Francis Lewis Boulevard on the east. The Queens Botanical Garden between College Point Boulevard and Main Street forms its western end, while a narrow patch is slotted between Colden Street and 56th Avenue/56th Road, seen in the above photo on a recent February afternoon. The gash “widens” into Kissena Park proper, which is divided into a “parklike” northern section and a more “natural” southern section, between Kissena Boulevard, Rose Avenue, Oak Avenue, Booth Memorial Avenue and 164th Street. East of that, the Kissena Corridor’s narrowest sector runs from Fresh Meadow lane to the Long Island Expressway, after several blocks’ interruption by the Kissena Golf Course between 164th and Fresh Meadow Lane. The Kissena Corridor is there because it is… Read More